|
Investigators say attackers were misled about target in Peshawar
[DAWN] Police Sherlocks probing the Friday attack on Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.’s Agriculture Training Institute (ATI) suspect that the planners of the attack apparently tricked the jacket wallahs into believing that the facility was an intelligence agency’s office, it emerged on Saturday. Nine people, including eight students, were killed and 28 others injured when three murderous Moslems stormed the provincial agriculture department-run training institute on Friday morning. All the three murderous Moslems were also killed in a two-hour-long operation. A senior police official told Dawn that the planners had deliberately misled the attackers about the target. "ATI was apparently their actual target but they misled the attackers saying it was an intelligence agency office," the official claimed. He said it was apparently done to keep the attackers motivated. "The attackers asked students whether or not it was an intelligence agency office," the official said. The outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban ...Arabic for students... Pakistain grabbed credit for the attack. Its Umar Media Cell released a two-minute-long video of the attack in which one of the assailants apparently tried to confirm whether the building was an intelligence agency’s office. In response to a student’s plea to spare his life, the attacker was heard saying he would not kill him if he told them whether or not this was an agency office. Live broadcast of attack The attack on the ATI located on University Road directly opposite the University of Peshawar campus was reminiscent of the deadly attacks on the Army Public School and Bacha Khan University, Charsadda. Police Sherlocks said it was the first incident that the attackers broadcast live to their handlers via a smartphone attached to one of the assailants’ body. "They used some communication apps to live broadcast the attack," said a police official. It appears that the video released by the TTP was acquired from the same footage broadcast live by one of the Death Eaters. Another official said that the attackers wore three boom jackets of relatively light-weight explosives which they did not use. He said they carried about 20 hand-grenades and two IEDs. "It shows that they were there for a long battle," the official said. Police and security forces pinned down the murderous Moslems holed inside the building after a two-hour-long shootout. Authorities said the button men had been killed and security forces had cleared the area after searching for remaining Death Eaters. Posted by: Fred 2017-12-04 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=502988 |